1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) and/or evolved MBMS (eMBMS) and more specifically to delivery of content identified to be popular using MBMS/eMBMS systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Consumption of multimedia content, primarily video content, from online content sources to multiple types of user devices has become a common occurrence. The delivery of media content has been increasing significantly and taking an increasing portion of the total bandwidth available for data transmission over data networks. To overcome some of this overload, multimedia content caching systems are used, for example, the types that are described in the co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/006,875 entitled “Methods for Detection of Content Servers and Caching Popular Content Therein” and Ser. No. 13/006,785 entitled “System for Detection of Content Servers and Caching Popular Content Therein”, both assigned to common assignee.
Such systems identify popular content and store it in their internal caches. When a request is sent for the content to be served from the original content provider, the device requesting the content is instructed to redirect its request to the content caching system, thereby reducing the load on the content provider as well as the network segment between the content provider and the content caching system delivering the content thereafter. Normally, content delivered by either the content provider or the content caching system, is delivered point-to-point for each requesting consumer.
Over the past several years, the usage of mobile user devices has also increased in popularity, with devices using wireless connectivity such as WiFi as well as various cellular technologies. These technologies allow the consumption of data over the air by such user devices. The proliferation of mobile devices coupled with an appetite for multimedia content has brought forth the creation of a standard known as Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) developed for cellular networks, including the evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) standard for long-term evolution (LTE) telecommunication networks, all referred to herein as MBMS. Basically, this solution enables point-to-multipoint data transmission thereby providing the efficient delivery of broadcast and multicast services to mobile devices. Such mobile devices may include smartphones, tablet computers, and the like. Using MBMS it is possible to provide multimedia content in a single transmission to multiple devices thereby reducing bandwidth requirements.